Healing
by Anmylica
Summary: George was thankful that the war was over, and that his family had made it through  even Fred made it, George had to tell himself, because Fred wouldn't have seen dying as failing .
1. Stay Strong

_Disclaimer:_ This story, and all subsequent chapters, is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended .

**Healing**

Chapter One: Stay Strong

The pain of losing Fred pierced him like a knife with every step George took, but he also couldn't help feeling relief that the fighting and hiding and resisting was finally over. He was exhausted, bloody, wounded, and even a bit hungry after the long day. George wondered briefly if it was wrong to feel hungry after losing his other half, but decided that his hunger and grief really couldn't be compared to each other. As George climbed the tower, he let a few tears escape. It was surreal; it didn't seem possible that never again would Fred be there to crack a joke. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't make himself believe it yet.

He reached the entrance to his old dormitory, but paused for a moment. He knew Harry would be upstairs in his dormitory, and he also knew he was probably blaming himself for the heavy losses they had sustained in the battle. Making up his mind, George decided to prolong sleep for a bit longer and trudged up the remaining flights of stairs and entered Harry's dorm.

Harry was sitting up in his bed, a plate of sandwiches sitting on his nightstand. George shut the door softly. Harry quickly finished the bite he had taken and said, "Hey George. Care for a sandwich?"

George moved over and sat on Ron's bed and helped him to one. "Thanks," he muttered, and both sat eating in silence. George, ravenous, devoured four before he paused. Harry had finished eating before George, and was sitting there on the bed watching him.

"It's not your fault," said George after he finished eating his last sandwich. "We all knew what we were doing, what it meant. I'm surprised I didn't lose more brothers, or a sister, to be honest. None of us thought we would come out of this unscathed as a family. Lupin didn't think he'd get out of this alive, nor Tonks or Kingsley. In fact, I'd be willing to bet my other ear your parents didn't believe they'd get out of the fighting the first time. Not that," George hastened to add upon seeing the look on Harry's face, "I mean they didn't try, or that they didn't hope to."

Harry's face softened as he pondered George's words. "It's not your fault either."

"No. It sure as hell wasn't Fred's fault. It all goes back to Voldemort."

"No, it goes back to Voldemort's parents. Their mistakes made it possible for someone like Voldemort to come into the world. If his father had given a damn maybe he wouldn't have turned out the way he did."

Silence fell over the conversation as the two Gryffindor heroes thought about Tom Riddle and the choices he made, the circumstances that brought about those choices. George didn't ask how Harry knew about Voldemort's parents; he reckoned that Dumbledore had had a hand in that before his death. In this new information, George briefly wondered if it were truly nurture that made a person who he was, or if nature did that all along. But he didn't wonder about that long, for there was a more pressing question George needed answered.

"Why did it have to be Fred, Harry? Why couldn't it have been me?" George looked the younger boy in the eyes. In that moment it struck George that the younger Gryffindor had seen more and done more than he; Harry was years older for his experiences than George could have ever been.

Harry shook his head and said, "I wish I knew. I only know why I didn't die. I don't know why it had to be Fred."

"I mean, he was such a great person," George continued as if he hadn't heard Harry, "always laughing and joking. It doesn't make any sense. Why was it him that was chosen? Percy was right there, and so was Ron! How did it choose Fred, and not one of them?"

"I wish I knew. I had the same questions after Sirius died too," answered Harry. "In the end, it just was him. I don't think we'll ever know why."

George bowed his head. "I don't think I could ever properly be happy again," he whispered. "Not if he can't be."

Both fell silent again. George knew that Fred would want him to move on, to be happy, but it was hard to feel as if he was deserving of that. After all, he wasn't there to protect Fred, and he told that to Harry.

"I don't believe that," rebutted Harry. "You were protecting Fred. And you were protecting Ron, and Ginny, and Percy, and your parents, and everyone else you cared about. But Fred was doing the same for you at the same time as you. He was trying to protect you from the Death Eaters he was dueling. Just like you were for him. You both were trying to protect each other fighting in the same war. There wasn't any way there wouldn't have been at the very least any injuries, even if he had survived! You did what you were supposed to."

"But that wasn't enough."

"Sometimes it never is enough." George looked at Harry, shocked, as Harry continued, "It wasn't enough to save my mum or my father, it wasn't enough to save Snape. I was trying to protect Sirius, and it wasn't enough. Remus was trying to protect Tonks, and it wasn't enough. It's hard for our actions to be enough to protect the ones we love when they are putting themselves in the same kind of danger."

George was silent as he thought about the words that Harry had just said, how there was a certain ring of truth about them. It didn't make the pain any easier, but it helped George accept what had happened just a little bit more. Once again, he was struck by how much loss Harry had felt by this point, and how much older the messy haired boy seemed because of it.

"I loved Fred too," Harry told George when it seemed that George wasn't going to comment. "It hurts like a knife to think he's gone. And in a lot of ways, it is my fault he died. If I had been quicker at hunting those horcruxes, if I had figured out what I needed to do sooner, he would still be alive. So would Remus, Tonks, Snape, and everyone else who died earlier. But blaming myself won't make him come back. All I can do is try to remember him, try to remember the goodness he brought to the world, and try to remember what he was fighting for. He was fighting against oppression, against a bigoted belief system, for the lives of his friends and family, and for his very livelihood. He was fighting for his right to live a peaceful, happy existence, one that his future family could live in and not experience fear or pain."

George wondered what Harry was talking about at the mention of horcruxes, but didn't interrupt.

"He would want you to go on and raise that family that he dreamed of. He would want you to carry on as if he never died, and keep the shop running successfully, fall in love, get married, have kids, and live. He would be living vicariously through you now if he were a ghost. I'm sure of it. So you can't give up. You can't not lead your life. You have to continue on for him."

"That's what you're going to do, isn't it?" George asked Harry.

"Yes. It's not going to be easy. I've lost so many people, and it never gets any easier. There are going to be days where I'll want to throw and smash things, cry until my eyes fall out, and then laugh because something happened to remind me of a good time with him. I'm going to grieve. I have to. But at some point I will manage to do what he, and everyone else who died, would want me to do. At some point in the future, I will be so caught up in living that I am living, and that could do more to preserve his memory than any monument or vow to be unhappy ever could. Dumbledore once told me not to pity the dead, but to pity the living, and those who live without love," said Harry.

George smiled at the quote from the old Headmaster. "Dumbledore was a smart bloke."

"Yeah," agreed Harry. "It only took me seven years to realize exactly how much."

"I just don't know what I'm going to do without him. He was my rock."

"He always will be," answered Harry. "He just won't be here physically."

George was confused. He had no idea what Harry was talking about. "What do you mean," he asked.

"Well," started Harry, "it could just be me, but I know Tonks' patronus changed when she fell in love with Remus. I wonder if the emotional upheaval of Fred's death might have done the same to yours."

George stared at Harry for a moment and then wordlessly took out his wand and cast the patronus charm. Instead of his customary dolphin, he saw Fred's chimpanzee. He and Harry watched in silence as it gallivanted and leaped across the room, stopping in front of the redheaded boy before disappearing. Even after it had disappeared, they stayed silent for the longest time.

Finally, George recovered enough to say, "I see what you mean. He will always be here."

George wasn't happy. He wasn't well. He would still be grieving for his twin for the rest of his life. He would be haunted by nightmares and dreams alike. But he did still have a piece of his twin with him. And that was enough to give George courage to face another day.


	2. Comfort in Others

**Healing**

Chapter Two: Comfort in Others

The next day was the hardest for George. Waking up in his old dormitory, it was like Fred had never died. But the empty four-poster bed said otherwise. As he stared at that empty bed, it finally hit George that never again would he crack jokes with his twin. He would never get to fool his mother into thinking he was Fred, and that Fred was George. He couldn't even call himself "Gred" any more (or was it Forge? It had been so long even he didn't remember). Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes wasn't plural; it was just Weasley's now.

He didn't notice when the tears began to fall. George just lay there on his bed, tears falling down his cheeks and running into the hole where his ear was supposed to be on that one side. The pain of it hurt so much he couldn't manage to sob hysterically. But still, the tears did fall. Several minutes later, he began to realize that the night was just breaking the day. He must have slept the rest of the day. Concepts like time didn't seem to matter much anymore.

Finally, the tears began to halt. George managed to somehow get himself into a sitting position and stared down at his body. He was still filthy from the battle, and his clothes were torn. His body aching, he stood and went to clean up. He repaired his clothing best as he could with magic. After a hot bath, he began to feel decent again. He wasn't hungry or thirsty, but he was still tired. Briefly he wondered if he should seek out his family, but decided against it when another wave of exhaustion overcame him. He settled back into bed and lay on his side in an attempt to alleviate the sick feeling in his stomach.

The door opened a crack sometime later. George roused from the stupor he had been floating in and out of and glanced at it. The light behind the figure obscured the person's features, but he could make out long red hair.

"George?" he heard Ginny call. "Are you still in here?"

"Yeah," answered George. His voice was raspy from sleep and disuse. "Yeah, I'm here."

The door opened just wide enough for Ginny to slip inside. She quietly padded to the bed, slipped under the covers, and curled up into George's side. He slipped his arms around her and pulled her close when she promptly burst into tears.

Once the tears subsided and the wracking sobs calmed, George said, "You haven't done this in a long time, little sister. Bad dreams?"

"Uh huh," whimpered Ginny.

"I see."

"Bill is off with Fleur, Charlie is Merlin knows where, Percy is with Mum and Dad, Ron is with Hermione, and it was horrible! A big snake came and ate you and Fred just disappeared and I had to wear a dress in a cage, and Ron told me it was my fault!" Ginny started crying as she finished. George stroked her hair and hugged her tight. While he knew that the others were probably busy, she had really come to him because she was hurting about Fred and knew that he was as well.

"You in a dress and a cage? That was a horrible dream," George halfheartedly quipped, referring to Ginny's stark refusal at the age of four at wearing anything remotely dress-like and frilly. "I'm glad you came to me though." He thought of how when she was little she would alternate between brothers every time she had a nightmare. It used to be mostly Bill, but then he went to Hogwarts and Charlie became the substitute. Once Charlie had left for school, she turned more to Percy and Fred and George, with the twins being the ones she turned to most (somehow she and Percy had never been as close as she was with Ron, Fred, George, and Bill).

She and Ron gravitated towards each other as the youngest siblings, but whenever a thunderstorm shook Ottery St. Catchpole, she and Ron would bolt to the twins' room and climb into bed with one of them and huddle until the storm subsided. Usually they would all fall asleep shortly after the thunder began. She turned to Ron for comfort from her nightmares until he left for Hogwarts, and then after her awful first year she stopped coming to any of them for comfort. George remembered how concerned Fred was when she stopped coming in to sleep with one of them for comfort after the events with the Chamber of Secrets. Idly, he thought Fred would be proud of her for seeking comfort rather than bottling everything up this time. He just wished it was for anything other than Fred's death.

"Well, what are older brothers for if you can't make them chase the monsters away?" Ginny chuckled weakly.

"We used to do such a good job doing that for you. I don't know when we all stopped. I'm sorry we all became such lousy gits at that, Ginny. You shouldn't have had to go through all that you have. I've been a terrible older brother."

"No you haven't. You're a great older brother. All of you are." Ginny shook her head and glared at him.

"Doesn't feel like it much from here." George turned his head away to wipe the tears that came suddenly to his eyes.

"Oh George." Ginny's eyes filled with tears as well.

"I hurt. I literally ache everywhere. I can't breathe. I feel as if every rib is broken and my heart has been shredded into a million ribbons. I feel as if I'll never be happy again. My eyes hurt from looking at the emptiness too much. I miss him so badly."

"I do too. I feel like I've lived a thousand lifetimes."

Silence filled the room as both wiped their tears away on the bedcovers. Nothing was said for a while, neither feeling the need to voice what the other understood. That was the greatest thing about their family. They might have had their differences, they might have fought, and they might have let their tempers fly at one another, but there was nothing like the bond that each of them shared. To say they loved one another deeply was an understatement. George was thankful that the war was over, and that his family had made it through (even Fred made it, George had to tell himself, because Fred wouldn't have seen dying as failing).

"I spoke with Harry earlier."

"He was awake?" Ginny asked.

"Yeah. I guess he had just escaped to his bed. He told me that we shouldn't pity Fred for dying, but be happy that we all had him and loved him. And that we still can love."

"Harry said that? Since when has he been philosophical?"

"I think his sacrifice to Voldemort addled his brains," chuckled George. "Nah, he didn't say that in so many words, but I think it's what he meant."

"It probably did," snorted Ginny. "I haven't gotten to talk to him yet. He was in a deep sleep when I went to check on him earlier."

"I'd say he deserves a rest. I imagine it's hard work defeating the worst Dark wizard ever."

"It took a lot out of all of us. Mum and Dad are making the arrangements."

George paused a moment before asking, "Do we know what they are yet?"

"I think they said something about burying him in Ottery St. Catchpole. McGonagall is planning on having a memorial at the end of the summer when the castle is repaired. I think we're all going to go back to the Burrow tomorrow." Ginny took in a deep breath. "Harry will probably come with us."

"Okay," replied George. The two siblings lapsed back into silence. A few minutes later he looked down to see his sister was asleep. He smiled slightly and whispered, "Love you Ginny." And then he turned over onto his other side, took his wand off the nightstand, cast an engorgement charm to widen the mattress, and settled down beside her and fell into the first deep sleep since the battle.

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><p>Thank you everyone for your reviews! Please, keep them coming! I'd love to see what you all have to say about this story so far.<p> 


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